Islanders roll past Coyotes thanks to dominant third period

TEMPE, Ariz. — The Islanders are all the way across the country, but Mullett Arena felt a lot like home on Thursday.

The 4,600-capacity building was transformed into UBS Arena West as the Islanders beat the Coyotes 5-1 in front of a crowd that featured more blue and orange than kachina.

“I honestly did not expect that in Arizona, but great to see the support from them here,” Julien Gauthier said. “They were loud. It’s great for us. Obviously it’s fun to get a win for them, too.”

After struggling throughout a 5-4 overtime loss in Denver two nights earlier, this was exactly the sort of bounce-back the Islanders needed.

They managed the puck — and moved it — with far more ease, controlling the run of play against a team which has surprisingly put itself into the playoff conversation.

And the first line of Anders Lee, Bo Horvat and Mathew Barzal combined for a trio of goals and six points on the night Barzal was named an All-Star for the third time in his career.

“I don’t think we were very happy with our last game in Colorado and we wanted to have a bounce-back night,” Horvat said after scoring twice. “I thought all three of us did a great job tonight. A lot of our offense came from playing well defensively, backtracking, countering against those guys, so it was great.”

It is the Islanders’ first win of 2024 and one they will hope can inspire them to recover their form of early December as opposed to their water-treading of the past couple weeks.

The crowd even avoided that most unscrupulous feature of the 2023-24 Islanders: a third period to break apart their nerve endings.

That looked all but inevitable after Arizona cut a 2-0 lead to 2-1 on Nick Schmaltz’s power-play goal at 3:29 of the second period, and after the score stayed that way entering the third.

But 4:29 into the last period, Lee capitalized after Barzal created a turnover in the defensive zone to beat Connor Ingram and extend the lead back to two goals.

And just 53 seconds later, Gauthier scored off the rush to make it 4-1, setting off a cacophony of “Let’s go Islanders” chants.

And if any Islanders fans still harbored the ghosts of past blown leads at that point, Horvat put those worries to rest by making it 5-1 and sealing a rare third period in which the team did nothing but dominate at the 13:05 mark.

“We didn’t deviate from our plan the whole night,” Horvat said. “We just kept pushing. And obviously different guys stepped up at different times. I was really proud of the way we played in the third.”

If the Islanders could do that more often, there would be a whole lot of nerve endings saved amongst those who wear blue and orange.

Those fans instead had to settle for the hope that this can mark the start of a new trend, in which the Islanders control games from the jump.

The Islanders’ power play struck just 11 seconds into its first opportunity of the night, with Horvat converting from the slot at the 7:56 mark of the first period.

Less than five minutes later, Barzal’s cross-ice feed found Mike Reilly at the left circle, where he doubled the lead.

Outside of Schmaltz’s goal — which occurred before Reilly could rejoin the play after an Arizona five-on-three expired — the Islanders in truth had the better of this one just as they did in the October match between these teams in which the Coyotes were held to fewer than 20 shots.

This one required more legwork from Ilya Sorokin, who was up to the task in making 25 saves including a number of high-danger stops during a helter-skelter second period.

But it was easily one of the best games the Islanders have played during the 4-3-3 stretch that has marked their past 10.

Two points amid a hail of “Let’s go Islanders” chants on the road were proof positive of that.

“Amazing. It was awesome,” coach Lane Lambert said. “I’m assuming [the fans] are gonna be in Vegas, too.”